A man walks past a building on the Google campus in Mountain View, Calif.

The U.S. government, and the information technology companies which collaborate with it, is moving fully into the camp of governments which relentlessly utilize the internet to collect users online data, monitor their activities, and control what they can see and do.

First, there was – and is – the NSA, National Security Agency of the U.S., which collects the emails, phone records, social media data, and more from millions of U.S. citizens and the people of the world. Software companies like Google cooperated silently by providing NSA access to its users until Edward Snowden made this odious system public.

Now Google, at the behest of its friends in Washington, is actively censoring – essentially blocking access to – any websites which seek to warn American workers of the ongoing effort to further attack their incomes, social services, and life conditions by the U.S. central government, and which seek to warn against the impending warfare between U.S.-led Nato and other forces against countries like Iran, Russia, and China, which have in no way threatened the U.S. state or its people

Under its new so-called anti-fake-news program, Google algorithms have in the past few months moved socialist, anti-war, and progressive websites from previously prominent positions in Google searches to positions up to 50 search result pages from the first page, essentially removing them from the search results any searcher will see. Counterpunch, World Socialsit Website, Democracy Now, American Civil liberties Union, Wikileaks are just a few of the websites which have experienced severe reductions in their returns from Google searches. World Socialist Website, to cite just one example, has experienced a 67% drop in its returns from Google since the new policy was announced.

This conversion of Google into a Censorship engine is not a trivial development. Google searches are currently a primary means by which workers and other members of the public seek information about their lives and their world. Every effort must be made to combat this serious infringement on the basic rights of freedom of speech and freedom of press.

World Socialist Website, the hardest hit victim of this e-censorship, is attempting to mobilize public opinion, and other effected websites, in a broad campaign against Google censorship. More information on the censorship, including detailed numbers can be found in articles here.

It is imperative that working class people struggle for truly democratic use of the internet, beginning with total freedom to view a wide range of topics, not just those which Google – and Washington – think Americans and the world should be able to see.

Stories published in our Daily Digests section are chosen based on the interest of our readers. They are republished from a number of sources, and are not produced by MintPress News. The views expressed in these articles are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News editorial policy.

CENSORSHIP FAKE NEWS GOOGLESEARCH ENGINE

"Fascists rejected reason in the name of will, denying objective truth in favor of a glorious myth articulated by leaders who claimed to give voice to the people."

Well, I think a user's ability to consider sources and make decisions based on information from multiple sources is more important the the rankings on search engines. People had to do that before the internet when they read papers.

I agree that companies like Google and Facebook should not censor "news", but I think that algorithms that rank Reuters higher than Infowars is perfectly legitimate. Now, do I trust administrators to decide which sources are reputable? Not at all. It's a matter of degree. But, I wouldn't trust the first search result that Google (or any other site/blog) returns simply because it came up first or was the latest addition to the database.

Afa my own Google search results, I haven't seen any changes. But, I think that there are lots of other search engines.

"A man is rich when he has time and freewill. How he chooses to invest both will determine the return on his investment."

There are a lot of other search engines. Questioning corporations and that which is commonly accepted by the public is always healthy. My issue with amazon, facebook and google is people blindly accept them without question.

Have you ever heard anyone question facebook or google? Because it is something I have rarely seen on a public platform. Instead people gulp it all down like fastfood.

Last edited by grzegorz on Sun Feb 11, 2018 2:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.

"Fascists rejected reason in the name of will, denying objective truth in favor of a glorious myth articulated by leaders who claimed to give voice to the people."

Afa the "liberal" media, that's an invention of the conservative right who first complained that showing pictures of people being firehosed or being bitten by dogs was biased. Movies that showed racism or sexism, or represent what they'd call conservative values. Don't fall for it. American media propaganda from the 50s was conservative, but fake as shit. The difference was that the "news" was just that. It was rare for newspeople to offer his opinion. It was a shock when Cronkite said something about the Vietnam War. Agree or disagree, at least you felt that he was being honest.

Afa the corporate nature of this country, heck, The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776. Greed is good for everybody. God says so. And, if you don't believe that, you must be a socialist. Unfortunately for the plan, imo, people are essentially moral --or at least understand fairness. So, it's impossible for unfairness to go unchallenged, even if some ignore it.

The "media" is about making money. This country was founded on the freedom to own property --something that they couldn't do in Europe. Women and men could be, and were, considered property. Even after that was abolished, the industrialists treated their workers the same. Ford was one of the better owners in that regard, but he was no peach. People were killed for joining unions. This was still true in my time. My carpenter union business agent was murdered because of his efforts to achieve fairness.

Last Nov. 29, William Nordstrom, the president and business agent of Local 488 of the Carpenters’ Union, was shot four times in the chest as he stepped from his car in front of his Bronx home. He died 90 minutes later in Jacobi Hospital.

In the weeks before his murder, Mr. Nordstrom — according to statements made by Ted Maritas, president of the Joint Council of Carpenters for the New York Metropolitan Area — “was heavilly into politics in the South Bronx, in organizing construction jobs there. He personally brought 200 minority group members into the union in the last six or seven months.”

Detectives are pursuing leads that Mr. Nordstrom's murder was a result of antagonism between him and some local groups. Mr. Nordstrom had been attempting to recruit some members of the local groups into his union, which would have deprived the groups of members’ dues, in addition to shifting their loyalty from the local organizations to the union.

“Hundreds of thousands of dollars can be saved on a construction project,” a detective said, “if the contractor employs non‐union labor. And Nordstrom was trying to prevent a contractor being able to get away with something like that.”

I completely agree which is why I speak out because we live in a nation where people are mislead to believe that minorities, Muslims and Mexicans are destroying this country when actually it is bad information which is destroying this country.

I am proud to be union. Like any institution it is not perfect but it is one of the few areas in the economy where the workers, instead of just the CEOs can get a piece of the pie. Not only that but the union sets the industry standard. Fedex Express pays $30 max but UPS pays even more but if they made UPS non-union not only would UPS drivers get less so would Fedex. Everyday is a fight but seems Google wants to hide all this. It is no wonder though since their new campus in Silicon valley is going to hire 30,000 people therefore displacing many who live there.

"Fascists rejected reason in the name of will, denying objective truth in favor of a glorious myth articulated by leaders who claimed to give voice to the people."

as a side note for the Union and Carpenters :in 90` when I was livin`in NYC - Carpenter in the Union get$ 35 an h., it allowed him to hire friend of mine for just $7 /he just arrived from Poland/ , andhad the job done!

Last edited by wiesiek on Wed Feb 14, 2018 2:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

I completely agree which is why I speak out because we live in a nation where people are mislead to believe that minorities, Muslims and Mexicans are destroying this country when actually it is bad information which is destroying this country.

I am proud to be union. Like any institution it is not perfect but it is one of the few areas in the economy where the workers, instead of just the CEOs can get a piece of the pie. Not only that but the union sets the industry standard. Fedex Express pays $30 max but UPS pays even more but if they made UPS non-union not only would UPS drivers get less so would Fedex. Everyday is a fight but seems Google wants to hide all this. It is no wonder though since their new campus in Silicon valley is going to hire 30,000 people therefore displacing many who live there.

with the real estate issue, what do you think of amazon hq2? it will possibly help fight the housing bubble/affordability in seattle area, but it'll drive up prices somewhere else. it seems like a microcosm of the wealth gap. I suppose I could theoretically benefit as I would apply for a job depending on where it ends up. but the issues you raise plus related issues are troubling.

amateur practices til gets right pro til can't get wrong/ better approx answer to right q than exact answer to wrong q which can be made precise /“most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. Source of all true art & science

Amazon passed up the bay area but Google is opening a second campus for 30,000 employees. The South bay has pretty shut down all their mobile home parks as the owners sell them to developers. As someone who has deliveried to mobile home parks, I have noticed that they are usually retirees so basically they have to get the hell out of Dodge.

OTOH 30,000 jobs. In the end the Bay Area is pretty much going to be for the rich and only the rich much like San Francisco and Seattle.

"Fascists rejected reason in the name of will, denying objective truth in favor of a glorious myth articulated by leaders who claimed to give voice to the people."